My dog is not gun shy

[mikescooling]

I took her to the skeet range to see if she was gun shy. When we pulled into the far side of the parking lot with the window's down, you could see her ear's perk up. She was excited to get out of the car and see what was going on. It helped that most of shooters stopped to meet her. We are going on our first hunt/camping trip in a few weeks.

 

[mbauer013]

I'm happy for you, nothing sucks worse than a gun shy hunting dog, can't get rid of them, can't use them for the intended purpose. Tha being said thats a pretty risky way to introduce a dog to a gun, lots of twelve gauges going off can actually introduce gun shyness in a dog that wasn't predisposed to it. We usually start with a 22 starter pistol fired about 50 yards away from a dog that is involved in something else and gradually ramp it up. That way if there is any sign of gun shness you can work with them on it before it really becomes a problem. Good luck on your hunt!

 

[brewkinger]

I will never forget my grandfather's method. He raised 7 generations of coon hounds, labs and spaniels for hunting purposes.

He took 3 lab pups once on a duck hunting training and I got to tag along for the first time.

His method: Tied a 5 foot piece of rope to each dogs flotation vest and tied them off to the boat.
Fired off a round, gathered all 3 dogs out of the water and repeated....

After 3 shots, only one dog jumped into the water and she got the hang of it after 2 more shots.

THese dogs were special though, it was in their blood and it only needed to be done once.

The funny thing was that when we would gather the dogs for these training missions, the others got excited cuz they wanted to go and were jealous.

I miss those days.

 

[mikescooling]

Thanks for the reply's guys. I pulled in to a large parking lot, with the windows down so all we could hear is the pops in the distance. I watched a YouTube video of the dog getting slowly worked into the gun fire, so I thought i'd give it a shot (no pun intended). One of the shooters at the range said I should ask the hunt club to buy 5 birds (tuck their heads) and spin them under some easy bushes. So my dog get's the idea of finding these birds. He said if if I throw her in the pack of other bird dogs she may just follow the other dogs, rather than hunting her self? What do ya think, buy the first 5 birds and let her find them?
The puppy:

 

[mbauer013]

Yeah, let her find but not catch a couple of birds herself then once the light goes on as to what she's supposed to be doing out there, put her in with other dogs so she learns from them. If not she may just hang back and let the other dogs work and then steal the flush.

 

[daksin]

Wish I could keep a dog for hunting. This thread needs more pictures of cool dogs!

 

[Chia]

i had a great dog that i trained for a long time. my prix brother in law borrowed him one day and fired off a .44. that was the end of that. i though her some tricks and gave her to good home. last time i was with my brother in law, i waited till his ear plugs were out and discharged my encoure .308 pistol...... **** HIM!

 

[landshark]

My dog hears a gunshot and immediately tries to find what was shot, nose to the ground sniffing. She's awesome. Black and Tan Coonhound.

 

[mikescooling]

The weekend did not go as planned, but we still got her first hunt in. She did a good job, but was shocked when I killed the game. She had this look like "what'ed you do?" But she got the hang of it. She is a hunter. I walked 7.25 miles, so I think she ran about 60. I've never seen her that tiered. She loved sleeping in a tent.